Back to school for Nursing

I have been thinking about what I want to do when I retire in 6 years. I have a BA (graduated in 1994) and a Paralegal Certificate from Hofstra (1996) but my grades were not the greatest.

I was thinking about Nursing but before I make a decision can I take some online classes just to see how I do in school (ones that would count towards a degree)? Does anyone know how I go about doing this? I heard of Suny learning network so I thought I could start there.

TIA

Re: Back to school for Nursing

I'm not a nurse (social worker), however, most of the people I work with daily are nurses.

From what I can see, this is probably not something you want to go into after retirement age.

It's really stressful and they are under so much pressure, especially due to lack of resources for patients, and them needing to be the go-to person for everything.

There are days where our head nurse will barely speak to me because she sees me as "bringing these types of patients" to her.

I have been employed at my agency for 5 years and there's also been a lot of turnover with RNs, and from what I've been told from them directly, it's because of the stress related to the job and clients.

I am sure that the nurses on here will chime in, but this is just how I see it from a shared working environment.

I work in home care. It may be different in a hospital or nursing home setting, but I am sure there's similar types of pressure.

ETA: All of the nurses I work with too tend to be older (50+++) and are counting down their days to retirement.

Message edited 2/16/2013 9:29:23 AM.

Re: Back to school for Nursing

What about a medical assistant in a doctor's office? That may be less stressful..

Back to school for Nursing

You may want to go sit down with a counselor at a college first. There are all different routes of nursing you can go into after your initial retirement, not very physical positions.. It's a great career to go into and you may also do it PT.. As for the age of nurses, I'm far from 50 and I see a lot of young girls entering the field..GL

Re: Back to school for Nursing

I recently went back to school for nursing as a second career and it was the best decision I have ever made.

I am not even close to retirement age (32) but know that half of my classmates were in their late 40s and some early 50s. It really depends on how many more years you are planning to work. And to what degree you can withstand the physical nature of the career....

Hospitals (and a lot of healthcare agencies) are beginning to require a BSN so you're talking about 4 years of school before you can even begin.

If you wanted to take 1/2 classes to see if you like the material, I would look into Anatomy and Physiology 1 & 2...they are both require courses for any RN program. However, they won't really be about nursing at all...just the human body and what not.

FM me if you have any specific questions.

Re: Back to school for Nursing

One thing I have to ask people going in to nursing is, why are you doing it? Is it for job security or the money? If that are the main 2 reasons, then really think about it. The job market is horrible, nobody is hiring new grads, and even then, without a bachelors degree in nursing, there is little chance. The pay for new grads has dropped because there are so many applicants for jobs that they just don't have to pay what they were just a few years ago.

If you still want to go into nursing because of the patient care, then you will have to start taking classes at a college, because the science classes required like micro, anatomy and physiology, chemistry, biology are not accepted if taken online because they require a lab componant, and you must have at least a B, more realistically an A in all of your sciences to have a good chance of admission. You could always take a science class or two, see how that goes and then consider if the years of school ahead is worth the jump. Good luck!